maternal - grandma
paternal - bubbe (the Yiddish word for grandmother)
My maternal grandparents (alive) are “Grandma Ruth” and “Grandpa Joe”. My mother calls her mother-in-law (died when I was two) “Grammy,” and so do the rest of us; my paternal grandfather is “Grandpa Odell” (first name).
My paternal grandmother’s name was Nana [Nickname], and my maternal grandmother’s name is Grandma [First Name] (although we sometimes slip up and call her Nana.) Both of my grandfathers were Papa [Nickname]s.
Nana sounds like nonna, the Italian word for grandmother. Papa’s informal father/grandfather. My paternal grandparents were immigrants, so it I suppose that’s where it came from.
We had a family friend who decided she was too young to be called Grandma, so her grandchildren called her Shannon. (Yiddish for beautiful?)
:eek: Mine too! Well, except my maternal grandfather (Joe) died last year. But it’s still eerie seeing “Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Joe” written out when it’s not me writing it.
Congratulations! As for me, the names went like this:
Maternal–Granny
Paternal–Grandma (though her other grandchildren called her Granny, my sister and I didn’t, as we already called Mom’s mom that)
Paternal grandfather’s second wife–Grandma Laura
I miss all of them.
Maternal - Grandmommy and Poppy
Paternal - Nanny and Pa
Congratulations on the coming grandchild!
All of my grandparents are long gone, unfortunately - my maternal grandfather was the last, in 1987; the others passed on in '61, '66 and '68. My maternal grandmother, who I was the closest to, I called “Grandmammy” (although as a very young child I had trouble pronouncing Gs and it came out as “Bamammy”), maternal grandfather was Grandaddy. Paternal grandparents, who I didn’t see as often or know as well, were Grandpa and Grandma. My mothers paternal grandparents were Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop, named so by my Mom, who was the first grandkid. Mom-Mom lived 30 years after Pop-Pop passed away, until she was 98. I remember seeing my fathers maternal grandmother, who everyone called Miss Effie, a few times; she too lived well into her nineties, although she passed in 1966.
thanks for giving me the chance to call up the memories of my grandparents (and great-grandparents!). 
Add me to the Grandma Ruth list. ('Cept it’s pronounced “granma” around here.) I’m kind of surprised to find so many. Mine died when I was second grade. 
Mom’s dad (G-ma Ruth’s husband) died when I was about two, so I never called him much of anything, but I’m sure he would have been Granpa Delbert though my older sister called him Granpa.
My dad’s parents are just Granma and Granpa. They live less than fifty feet away, so we see a lot of them. There’s never really been a need to distinguish between the two sets. Fairly boring, but descriptive.
I actually had a discussion about just this subject yesterday. My wife, my 5-month-old son and I were having lunch with my parents and my in-laws, and as the baby is the first grandson of either couple, they need to decide what they want to be called.
Now, my wife’s parents were both born and raised here in Israel, so they get to be called Saba and Safta. My parents, however, are natives of New Jersey and still keep an English-speaking household. On her part, my mom has no problem being called Grandma - in fact, she’s tickled pink by the idea. My dad though, who at 57 can still bench-press something like five times his own weight (I’m exaggerating, but not by much), adamantly refuses to be referred to as Grandpa, Granddad, Pop-Pop or any other nom de dotage. As an alternative, he suggested “Grambo” or “The Gramminator.” I’m pretty sure he wasn’t being serious, but with him, you never know.
I had a grandmother Ida and a grandmother Shirley. Or, as a I secretly thought of them, the grandmother who complained about my father and the grandmother who complained about my mother.
To her face, I call her ‘Noni’, which is a bastardization of the Italian, ‘Nona’.
Behind her back (she’s a vile, nasty, mean, bitter, old woman) I call her ‘GFH’. Grandma From Hell.
Our daughter says, “God doesn’t want her, and the devil is afraid she’ll take over!”
We all agree…
My mom is Nanny [firstname] to my brother’s kids. My husband’s mom is Grammi to her three grandkids. My sister-in-law’s mom is Mimi.
Actually, both my grandmothers were named Ruth – I assume it was the “Jessica” of the 1920s. If I have a daughter, I’m going to give her “Ruth” as a middle name.
How neat to see all of the Grandma Ruth’s! Unfortunately, my first name isn’t Ruth, but one of my daughter’s is so she’ll carry on the fine tradition your Grandma’s started
Some excellent suggestions offered - thanks everyone! I’m so glad I have 8 more months to decide
Please keep our daughter and grandbaby to be in your thoughts/prayers.
We had a Grandma and the other grandmother was called…
Mommy Alice. She’s been gone since '78 but it never occurred to me until years later what an unusual name that was. Evidently, she didn’t want to be called Grandma or anything like that, and my older cousin was born 10 years before I was. So by the time I arrived that name had already stuck.
Maternal - Bubby (grandmother) and Zaydy (grandfather)
Paternal - Baba (grandmother) and it would have been Zydeh had my grandfather lived to see his grandkids.
They’re all Yiddish, but with different regional accents.
My maternal grandparents had over seventy grandkids; the oldest daughters’ kids called them Grandma and Grandpa, the fifteen or so in Israel called them Saba and Savta (the Hebrew names), and the fifty or so rest of us, plus most of the great-grandkids, called them the Yiddish version.
The Philadelphia Eagles used to have a quarterback named Bubby Brister, which always cracked me up - I’d imagine a skinny little Jewish grandmother lining up behind the center.
Late congrats!
My maternal grandparents were known as Nanna and Grandpa.
My paternal grandparents were known as Poppa and Ma. (Ma is, appropriately, short for Margaret; she’s essentially a step-grandmother.)
Since my brother and I were the first grandchildren to arrive on my mother’s side, we had the enviable honour of bestowing my maternal grandparents with their names, the other cousins that arrived later also knew them by these names. Interestingly enough this wasn’t the case on the paternal side, with my American cousins referring to our Poppa and Ma as “Grandpa and Grandma”.
Also, for some reason, I’ve never liked tacking on the first name or surname to the name of either grandparent (ie, Grandma Helen, Grandpa Jones). I know it differentiates which grandparent from which side you’re referring to… but… it doesn’t seem right - like referring to your own mother by her first name.
Mine’s always been ‘nan’ (mostly was around the one on my mother’s side, but when I saw the one on dad’s side she was nan too, or sometimes nanna)
Though my girlfriend is south african and calls hers ‘ouma’ (which is apparently afrikaans for grandmother)
Hey, that link for grandma’s in other languages is really cool.
I think when I become a grandma I want to be called Lola. I’m not remotely spanish and failed it in high school, but it has a certain panache to it.
You guys have got your Polish mixed up. “Grandmother” is babcia, which is what I called both my grandmothers (long gone, now), although we pronounced it “Bob-chee” or “bah-chee”.
MilliCal uses “Grammy” for one grandmother and “Grandma” for the other.